D.H. Lawrence Ranch Initiatives
The purpose of the Ranch Initiatives is to preserve the legacy of novelist D.H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda Lawrence. Widely considered one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, the British novelist owned only one piece of property in his lifetime, a 160-acre ranch located some fifteen miles outside of Taos, New Mexico which was bequeathed to the University of New Mexico by Frieda Lawrence. Fundamental to the mission of the D. H. Lawrence Ranch Initiatives is preservation of the property and historic buildings.
The Ranch Initiatives program seeks to place the operation of the property on a firm financial basis and to restore and develop the site so that it can support educational, cultural, and research activities for students, faculty, and the greater New Mexico community. This mission honors the directives of Frieda Lawrence’s will, which stipulated that the property “be used for educational, cultural, charitable, and recreational purposes.” View the full brochure for the D.H. Lawrence Ranch Initiatives here.
The D.H. Lawrence Ranch is open to the public during the following hours (weather permitting):
Tuesday | 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. |
Wednesday | 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. |
Thursday | 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. |
We recommend checking the UNM Facilities Management website for up-to-date weather and environmental conditions using this link: https://fm.unm.edu/quick-links/dh-lawrence-ranch.html
Cabins are not available to rent at this time.
If you have any questions regarding your visit to the D.H. Lawrence Ranch, please call The D.H. Lawrence Ranch office at (575) 776-2245. For programmatic questions, please contact the D.H. Lawrence Ranch Initiatives at dhlawrenceranch@unm.edu or call (505) 277-6347 (English Department front desk).
We hope you enjoy your visit and welcome your stories and photos. If you would like to share your experience, please email us at dhlawrenceranch@unm.edu
To donate to the D.H. Lawrence Ranch Initiative Fund, please visit the University of New Mexico Foundation's D.H. Lawrence Ranch Intiatives Fund giving page, or send a check to:
D.H. Lawrence Ranch Initiatives Fund
Department of English
1 University of New Mexico
MSC03 2170
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
News Update: September 8th, 2023
Over the weekend of August 26 and 27, seven students from different disciplines across the humanities spent time with Drs. Julianne Newmark and Audra Bellmore discovering the rich, intertwining threads of regional history which run through and around the site of the D. H. Lawrence Ranch.
ENGL 320 and ENGL 520-Taos: Professional Writing and Public History focuses on northern NM Literary, Artistic, Indigenous, and Settler History, and textual outputs. Co-taught by professors from the English Department and Museum Studies, the class allows students to practice techniques for site assessment, curation and preservation and create public-facing interpretive on-site and digital texts using professional writing and public humanities approaches.
Dr. Newmark writes, “Students in the 8-week UNM course are charged with the responsibility of creating content, derived from their own research as well as rich visual archival materials from the Center for Southwest Research, that will be shared with the public via a digital story map in Spring 2024. The goal of the story map is to emphasize the importance to Taos and vicinity of the Kiowa Ranch site and to emphasize it as a site of convergence for Pueblo tribes, Indigenous people elsewhere in the region, Hispano settlers, homesteaders, those interested in forestry and environmental stewardship, and those dedicated to historic preservation and site curation. Put another way, the D. H. Lawrence/Kiowa Ranch site is a place that has seen many intertwined histories and from which emanate a multitude of stories. The students in the class will help tell those stories and create a lasting interactive digital resource that can be built upon over time, as a result of additional research and restoration work and future visits by an expanding number of UNM students, which was Frieda Lawrence's wish when she bequeathed the property to UNM in 1955.”
News Update: August 17, 2022
We hope you'll join us for the 4th Annual D.H. Lawrence Lecture and Centenary Celebration scheduled for September 2022.
For more information, please visit our Lectures Page.
New Blog Post!
Visit our Blog to see the most recent blog post by Professor Ros Wade who recently traveled from London to visit the D.H. Lawrence Ranch.
News Update: February 15, 2019
Save the date -- April 2, 2019 – for the 3rd Annual D.H. Lawrence Lecture
Dr. Marianna Torgovnick, Professor of English at Duke University and Director of Duke in New York Arts and Media presents her lecture, Friends and Lovers: Owning D.H. Lawrence. Dr. Torgovnick writes, “D.H. Lawrence was scarcely in his grave before friends and lovers began fighting over his reputation and many critics, including me, work on D.H.L. for years. The lecture takes a playful look at Lawrence’s life and thought, with possessiveness as its theme and includes some short readings from Torgovnick’s novel (written under another name), about D.H. and Frieda Lawrence.”
The lecture will take place at the UNM Continuing Education Auditorium at 6pm.
For more information, please contact Susan at dhlawrenceranch@unm.edu.
News Update: February 4, 2019
Dr. Virginia Hyde passed away on January 2, 2019. Hyde, along with Tina Ferris, was able to get the D. H. Lawrence Ranch added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) making the property eligible for National Landmark Status in 2004.
As many in the D. H. Lawrence literary community mourn her passing, Sharon Warner writes a blog post recognizing Hyde's important contribution to the history of the property. Read Warner's post here.
Event News:
Associate Professor of English Literature and Director of the D. H. Lawrence Research Centre at the University of Nottingham, UK
Thursday, April 5, 6 p.m., UNM Continuing Education Auditorium, 1634 University Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131
Watch Dr. Harrison offer a few words about his experience of the D.H. Lawrence Ranch during his Lawrence Lecture week, April 5-9, 2018
View the 2018 D.H. Lawrence Lecture with Dr. Andrew Harrison below:
